ABSTRACT
This book has put forward the first painting-by-painting, year-by-year account of Vermeer’s oeuvre, following his gradual cumulative formal and conceptual development in relation to his use of family members as models, changing circumstances, and exchanges with other artists. However, I have left aside seven paintings currently attributed to Vermeer and one further example, which are based on the same interiors, furniture, objects, and family members as models, yet do not fit in with his distinctive approach, level of technical skill, or overall progression (Plates 6, 12-15). Several of these eight “misfit” compositions also copy, adapt, and combine elements from Vermeer’s paintings. The attribution of these works to Vermeer has precluded attempts to provide a coherent chronology of his oeuvre or to account for his development. Earlier scholars recognized various problems with most of these compositions individually, but never offered plausible explanations for the disparities or addressed the paintings as a group. Two paintings in particular have posed overt problems for recent scholarship: all current authors with one exception have de-attributed Girl with a Flute as a Vermeer without proposing a coherent alternative, whereas a group of scholars in 2004 declared Woman Seated at a Virginal, which had not been included in his oeuvre since 1976, indisputably by Vermeer (Plates 14, 15).
